Publisher: Stegersaurus / Developer: Stegersaurus / Platform: XBLIG

It really feels like something special when you find a game in the Xbox Live Indie Game section that actually feels like it was made by someone who knows a thing or two about videogames.  Like Escape Goat and Lair of the Evildoer, Lots of Guns is a surprisingly fun Indie Game that sells for dirt cheap.

Off the bat, Lots of Guns reminded me of the (free!) PC indie game Super Crate Box.  Now, why would I even recommend a game that is essentially a paid version of an already-free game?  First off it’s only $1, stop complaining.  Secondly, while Lots of Guns borrows Super Crate Box‘s mix of frantic platforming and random weapons, the objective of the game changes from collecting crates to ascending an infinite tower.

For those that have never played Super Crate Box or anything similar, Lots of Guns has the player constantly ascending a series of platforms while enemies pour down from the top.  Along the way you’ll pick up, well… Lots of Guns.  You can only carry one gun at a time, and each of the weapon pickups are randomly-generated.  So sometimes you’ll get something like a choice between a Rocket Launcher and a Minigun, and other times… other times you’ll get choices like Dual Pistols or Butt Gun.

The amount of variance in the game is what makes me keep wanting to play.  I might have found all the weapons and enemies by now, but I’ll never really know for sure because as soon as I get higher up in the tower I find something I’ve never seen before.

While they are quite far in between you will find Checkpoints upon your ascension.  These checkpoints allow you to restart the game at the height of your last checkpoint if you die, and also change the enemies and art style of the level, which is pretty neat.  Each style has its own set of enemies, which sort of forces you to adapt your strategy (although this rarely strays far from “jump and shoot a lot”).

Lots of Guns isn’t a complex game.  At all, really.  But sometimes that’s what you need.  A simple, bite-sized game to play for just a few minutes.  While it really would have benefited from some form of multiplayer, even just couch co-op, Lots of Guns is the definition of cheap, simple fun.

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